1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus which acquires a state of an image forming apparatus, a method for controlling an information processing apparatus, an image forming apparatus, a method for controlling an image forming apparatus, and a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
A system that can display a status of a network-connected device on a display section of an information processing apparatus is known. A status display application such as a printer driver is used to display the status of the device on the display section of the information processing apparatus. To acquire the status of the device, the information processing apparatus in the system regularly transmits a status acquisition command to the network-connected device. The device in the system sends back status information indicating the status of the device in response to the status acquisition command transmitted from the information processing apparatus. As a result, the information processing apparatus can display the status of the device on the display section (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2002-077689 and 2002-059616).
When the device is powered off, the device becomes unable to send back the status information of the device to the information processing apparatus. When the information processing apparatus transmits a status acquisition command and gets no reply to the command, the information processing apparatus determines that the communication with the device is disabled, and displays a message “communication error” on the display section. The message “communication error,” however, can be displayed not only when the device is powered off but also for the following reasons:                The turning off of a power switch by a user's operation;        An unplugged network cable or failed network cable;        A communication failure (the network going down) due to a trouble in the network environment; and        IP address misconfiguration.        
Since the foregoing message “communication error” can be displayed because of such various reasons, the user cannot identify the reason why the communication with the device is disabled. Take, for example, a handy device such as a camera. When a camera is powered off, the user can recognize it and can determine that the communication between the device and the information processing apparatus is disabled because the device is powered off. On the other hand, in an environment where the information processing apparatus and the device are located in remote locations over a network, the user cannot recognize that the device is powered off. The user is thus unable to identify the reason why the communication with the device is disabled.